Proposal for a comprehensive national ssholarship program

Any acheme of comprehensive federal aasistance to institutions of
higher learning is bound to evoke reasonable fears of central domination
of educational policy. The private institutions understandably will be
partioularly reluctant to have to justify their programs to oenatral state
or federal authorities as a basia of allocation of funda; on the other hand
the financial straita of all our universities, the support of which is too
often thought of as philanthropy rather than investaent, are tied up with
the ambiguous insentives to our gifted youth to mke their own investasnt
in higher education,

enn national stake in higher education is too vital for us to conten
te putting it on the market in a traditional sense— we cannot now afford
to limit it to staudente who have private mans to pay, but one way or another
ie mast becomes econoaically self-sustaining if the colleges ani universities
to achieve the health and self-reliance that mark other aspects of our
free-enterprise culture. A comprehensive scholarship program can be devised
that would, at the same tim, ensure that our most gifted students will be
unlapeded in the pursuit of scholarship ani reward and sustain our universities
fairly, with a minimum of bureaucratic interference. This program has had a
successful precedant in the postuar 0. I, Bill of rights, ani is paralleled
to some extent in the fellowship programs of pending bills ani those now
operative by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Founda~
tion. What is perhaps new in this proposal is that the fellowship-scholar-
ship program oa be wed to administer federal support to the institutions
as well as to the acholars in the asost effective way.

The basic features of the pro would be: (1) a national (or mlti-
state) scholarship examinations (2 stipends to the highest socring students
sufficient for minim needs in college (3) an award, to the institution of
each student's choice, sufficient to cover the actual cost of his education,
ineluding liberal, provisions for renewal and mintenance of facilities and
expansion; (4) lean t funds to cover unueual personal requirements, ¢.g+,
family obligations.

Winer adjustments can be made through formnlae of allocation of numbers
of scholarships among the states. A liberal ainimum should be established
for item (3), and the award might indeed be fixed at a uniform high level.
In this way, outetanding achilevemat by a would be recognised by the
interest of superior students in attending it. ‘The diverse values of different
kinis of inatitutions would be recognised by the free choises of the potential
stuxiente. In general, the program would establish an effective market (in a
technical economic sense) in which the consuspre in whom the nation has the
greatest atake would be given the means t& effect the national loves tat.
2. Need. The criterion of faaily incom is often an unrealistic measure
of individual need, especially in advanced education. Since we still do not
have a deep-seated national respect for learning, many families may be reluctant,
even hostile to supporting their children in scholarly studies, regardless of their
apparent means. A aang test carries an implication of charity rather than national
investmmt, which is in any case likely to be repaid as taxes returned on augmented
income, as well as the now recognized social values of soholarly and professional
voeations. The adainistrative machinery needed to atteapt a fair adainistration
of a means test is already a fair arguaent against it. Finally, the progressive
income tax is the fairest, most versatile and a sufficient tool for allocating
the burdens of national activity on the basis of ability to pay: why should the
already tax-ridden middle class be specifically discriminated against in a
tational program of investamt in higher education,